Aftermath
by BritaniaVane
Summary: Atton awakes from a preliminary showdown with Darth Sion to find an all-too-understanding ex-Jedi watching over what remains of his sorry excuse for a rescue.


A soft, soothing humming filled his head to calm capacity.

Atton floated for eternity and back, the humming growing louder as the distance from the void to waking life closed; the sound slowed, becoming more distinct, precise, but nonetheless soothing, and his eyes opened as he registered Eden's voice.

"About time, sleepyhead," she almost cooed, speaking barely above a whisper.

Atton was watched over by what seemed like a thousand, microscopic yellow lights, dimmed as if he had been reincarnated in some high-end Coruscant restaurant of all places. His eyelids threatened to close, his brain content with the darkness and the company of Eden's voice, but her physical presence urged him to remain awake.

A hand reached up to brush the hair out of his face, and remained so, stroking it to the side without purpose other than comfort, and Atton wondered what good he had ever done to deserve this kind of unwarranted closeness. His chest began to feel cavernous, like a gaping maw opening up to the universe, and Atton was not entirely sure if this was due to Eden's face swimming into focus or to several broken ribs.

"Don't-" Eden started, the kaleidoscope of her multiple faces slowly spinning and merging into the one, "Just don't move, okay?"

As the room came into focus, so did his nerves' synapses. The pain spread outward from his ribcage as if his sternum had erupted with molten hot magma, slowly crawling over his body and caking his bones in a burning blanket. Even grimacing took a toll.

Eden's hand remained on his forehead, now a paperweight to keep him still.

"How long-?" He discovered speaking was also a chore.

"Two days, give or take," she said softly, her skin aglow under the emergency lights, Atton now realized. A monitor tracking his vitals beeped nearby alongside the eternal humming of the Hawk, but judging by the lighting, Eden's tempered tone, and the general silence Atton knew the rest of the crew was asleep. And here was Eden, nursing an idiot back to health.

"You do remember what happened, don't you?" she half-whispered, half-spoke, her eyes orange in the light.

"Oh," Atton laughed despite the sharp stabbing in his ribs, which was much like reliving the memory, "I remember."

A vision swam before his waking eyes, a brief recollection of what had happened before he slept that infinite sleep of the wounded or nearly dead: Sion, with his grey skin a map of broken constellations of scars, laughing at him from the floor of the Sith ruins, his petty wounds painted with congealed blood and sand. _You know pain just as well as I do, assassin. The taste for blood forever lingers._

Something in those words left him aching more than any physical injury.

Eden's face settled into unease as she watched him, most likely reliving Atton's last waking moments along with him in silence. Atton pulled himself out of the memory to the present, where Eden's hand was warm on his forehead and despite the pain this was the reason he believed his heart was beating faster than usual.

Atton felt his mouth open, but his mind stopped him from speaking as it realized his words were not filtered. He chewed his lip as Eden cocked her head at him, her fingers brushing against his hair, sending tremors through his aching bones.

 _I won't let him break you_ , was the last thing Atton thought before he rushed at Sion with a lightsaber he still hardly knew how to control and the words resurfaced to his lips under Eden's concerned gaze. He knew he didn't have to tell her this. To remind her would be an insult and his mouth was now a safe, his voice locked away and swallowed like a key before his inner monologue could betray him. Instead, he smiled.

"Thanks, doc," he muttered, leaning ever so slightly into Eden's palm.

She rolled her eyes. A few strands of hair fell to frame her face once her gaze returned and the corner of her mouth eased into a half-smile.  
"I should be thanking you, flyboy," she murmured affectionately, her fingers brushing his forehead ever so lightly, "Though a lightsaber really isn't your strong suit."

Atton laughed as best he could through a grimace, "Patience padawan, patience,"

"We can arrange to fix that. I am an expert swordsman, after all," Eden's half-smile widened momentarily, their eyes locked, "Yet you weren't half bad out there."

"Coming from a self-proclaimed expert, I'll take that as a complime-" and just as Eden bit her lip to keep a smile from overwhelming her, something Atton noticed she fought often lately, a calm but unwelcome voice interrupted him, bringing him back to the dull ache of his wounds.

"Ah, I see our brave warrior is finally awake," Mical announced as he spirited into the room, immediately looking to Atton's vitals. "You seem to be recovering quite miraculously," Mical muttered as his eyes danced between the vitals screen and the datapad he picked up on his way in.

The soft blue light from the dual screens highlighted the medic's chiseled face, but Atton's limbs relaxed once he caught Eden's eye again; her attention had not shifted from the patient bed and she was now not only trying to hide a smile but a laugh. Atton rolled his eyes.

"How does he seem to you?" Mical asked, placing the datapad on the counter and flicking through vials with his other hand like wind through a chime.

"You know I can hear you, right?" There was no amount of pain in the 'verse that could keep the sarcasm from escaping Atton's smirking mouth, it seemed.

Mical only smiled at him politely as his fingers deftly grasped a vial and brought it to the hospital bed.

"You know, we all wanted to thank you for what you did back there," Mical replied as he pierced the IV into the nozzle of the vial. The genuine nature of his voice made Atton want to hurl. Or perhaps it was the drugs. Atton couldn't meet Mical in the face and instead watched the hypodermic needle suction the fluid through the intravenous. "Really, thank you."

The resident medic checked one last thing off his datapad before leaving it on the medbay counter, his hand briefly meeting Eden's shoulder before he swept out of the room. Atton's stomach acquired the feeling of imploding in on itself, much like matter being swept into a black hole, but was again unsure if this was due to drugs or Mical's mere presence.

A giggle brought him out of his physical discomfort and he found Eden laughing at him.

"He's actually a brilliant doctor, I'll have you know," she said, her laugh gradually fading as each word escaped her mouth. "You're quite lucky he's aboard, regardless of any other opinion you might have."

Atton's mind reeled as his eyes rolled back momentarily, but he at least managed a wry smirk in response. "Am I, now?"

It was definitely the drugs. Once Atton's eyes opened again, he found several Edens swimming about him, and he suddenly remembered that her hand was still on his forehead but now it felt as if it were made of lead. Soft, supple, gentle lead…

"I'm lucky you were there," she said softly, her fingers brushing the hair out of his eyes one last time before retracting, leaving his forehead bare as he drifted back into unconsciousness.


End file.
